ASSIGNMENT 4



You were invited by the university president to prepare an IS plan for the university, discuss what are the steps in order to expedite the implementation of the IS Plan. (at least 5000 words)

If the university president invited me to prepare an IS plan I would discuss what are the process in developing a strategy and plans for aligning information systems with the business strategies of an organization.

The plan should align with the ff:

Mission
A company's mission is its reason for being. The mission often is expressed in the form of a mission statement, which
conveys a sense of purpose to employees and projects a company image to customers. In the strategy formulation process, the mission statement sets the mood of where the company should go.

Objectives

Objectives are concrete goals that the organization seeks to reach, for example, an earnings growth target. The objectives should be challenging but achievable. They also should be measurable so that the company can monitor its progress and make corrections as needed.

Situation Analysis

Once the firm has specified its objectives, it begins with its current situation to devise a strategic plan to reach those objectives. Changes in the external environment often present new opportunities and new ways to reach the objectives. An environmental scan is performed to identify the available opportunities. The firm also must know its own capabilities and limitations in order to select the opportunities that it can pursue with a higher probability of success. The situation analysis therefore involves an analysis of both the external and internal environment.
The external environment has two aspects: the macro-environment that affects all firms and a micro-environment that affects only the firms in a particular industry. The macro-environmental analysis includes political, economic, social, and technological factors and sometimes is referred to as a PEST analysis.
An important aspect of the micro-environmental analysis is the industry in which the firm operates or is considering operating. Michael Porter devised a five forces framework that is useful for industry analysis. Porter's 5 forces include barriers to entry, customers, suppliers, substitute products, and rivalry among competing firms.

The internal analysis considers the situation within the firm itself, such as:
• Company culture
• Company image
• Organizational structure
• Key staff
• Access to natural resources
• Position on the experience curve
• Operational efficiency
• Operational capacity
• Brand awareness

Evaluating the Implementation of Your Technology Plan

Technology implementation is a continuous process that adapts to the organization's changing circumstances and includes ongoing evaluation. Effective evaluation will force planners to rethink and adapt objectives, priorities, and strategies as implementation proceeds. Continuous evaluation also facilitates making changes if aspects of the plan are not working.
Evaluating the implementation of a technology plan can be conducted by various means. Simple observations, both negative and positive, that have been made by students and teachers using the technology are the most helpful. Interviews and informal meetings with both instructors and students can draw out the lessons that both groups have learned from using the technology. A simple written survey can assist in measuring the extent to which the plan has met its original objectives and expected outcomes.

The following questions should be addressed when planning the evaluation of the implementation of your technology plan:

• How and when will you evaluate the impact your technology plan implementation has on student performance?
• Who will be responsible for collecting ongoing data to assess the effectiveness of the plan and its implementation?
• What windows of opportunity exist for reviewing the technology plan? (For example, the plan might be reviewed during curriculum review cycles.)
• How will accountability for implementation be assessed?
• How will you assess the level of technological proficiency gained by students, teachers, and staff?
• How will you use technology to evaluate teaching and learning?
• What is the key indicator of success for each component of the plan?
• How will you analyze the effectiveness of disbursement decisions in light of implementation priorities?
• How will you analyze implementation decisions to accommodate for changes as a result of new information and technologies?
• What organizational mechanism will you create that allows changes in the implementation of the technology plan and in the plan itself?
• Market share
• Financial resources
• Exclusive contracts
• Patents and trade secrets

A situation analysis can generate a large amount of information, much of which is not particularly relevant to strategy formulation. To make the information more manageable, it sometimes is useful to categorize the internal factors of the firm as strengths and weaknesses, and the external environmental factors as opportunities and threats. Such an analysis often is referred to as a SWOT analysis.
Strategy Formulation
Once a clear picture of the firm and its environment is in hand, specific strategic alternatives can be developed. While different firms have different alternatives depending on their situation, there also exist generic strategies that can be applied across a wide range of firms. Michael Porter identified cost leadership, differentiation, and focus as three generic strategies that may be considered when defining strategic alternatives. Porter advised against implementing a combination of these strategies for a given product; rather, he argued that only one of the generic strategy alternatives should be pursued.
Implementation
The strategy likely will be expressed in high-level conceptual terms and priorities. For effective implementation, it needs to be translated into more detailed policies that can be understood at the functional level of the organization. The expression of the strategy in terms of functional policies also serves to highlight any practical issues that might not have been visible at a higher level.

The strategy should be translated into specific policies for functional areas such as:
• Marketing
• Research and development
• Procurement
• Production
• Human resources
• Information systems
In addition to developing functional policies, the implementation phase involves identifying the required resources and putting into place the necessary organizational changes.


Implementation Plan

According to the wiki Directing Technology "Technology implementation starts at the inception of the planning development strategy. There are two distinct types of technology implementation: implementing developed technology and implementing developing technology projects. They are very similar in that the projects need a plan that has a schedule with clear GO/NO-GO decision points and a project team that has well laid out responsibilities. The technology department will be implementing developed technology(2006)".
Implementation of your technology plan will be the most complicated and time consuming part of the process. It is important to allow yourself at least one year before the actual implementation starting day to make all the necessary arrangements. Your plans will depend on many things including the size of your district, status of your existing technology program, skill set of your teachers and administrators and size of your technology staff. Your plan may need to be implemented all at once or over the course of several years, phasing in different stages.
Your technology plan has been accepted by the district. Its time to plan the implementation. At least six months to a year prior to beginning the implementation, several elements of the plan will be carried out simultaneously by several different groups.

The progress of the project should be documented in writing and communicated to all persons involved. A good checklist should be developed to organize the associated details.

A sample checklist:
• Describe goals & objectives (as outlined in the Technology Plan)
• Identify participant’s roles and responsibilities
• Identify impacts
• Design methods to deal with impacts
• Identify resources needed and available
• Identify the completion date desired
• Identify the constraints
• Break the implementation into steps
• Identify milestones / decision points
• Design project paths
• Design tracking methods
• Schedule team meetings
• Design communication methods
• Design technical support
• Design professional development

The technical staff implementing developed technology must not only manage the deployment of the hardware and software, but they must also cope with the daily activities of the school district while they prepare for the transition to the new technology. Project management skills are necessary to provide as smooth a job as possible for all involved. Further information on project management: Sample list of project management organizational tools; Project Management Template
At the same time, the administrative team will have researched and decided exactly which laptops will be purchased and from which vendor. They will have determined necessary units and submitted purchase orders. They will include in their orders sufficient quantities of peripheral items like graphic tablets, mouses, headphones with mics, tables, chairs and extension cords.

Laptops for Students

The implementation is so important that students will be asked to return to school two days early to be introduced to the laptops. During these two days, students will be involved in induction classes that will take them through the essential concerns of using the new laptops in school. The students will complete two days of formal training with technology specialists and their presence is mandatory. At the end of the induction session, a test will be taken to identify students that can possibly receive further assistance during the start of the year.
The students will be assigned their laptops at before the start of the school year and will be asked to sign an acceptable user policy agreement form and encouraged to personalize their new laptops in case they get assigned laptops for the year. The administrative and professional development teams will assist teachers in introducing the students in understanding how the program will be run and what their responsibilities for using laptops will be.
In addition, parents will also be sent an policy agreement that covers all the necessary information about the consequences of mistreatment of the equipment. This document will also have insurance information. Parents are required to sign this docuemtn and send it back to school.

Laptop care

The schools will provide specific features for the school bags that students will use for carrying computer equipment. Those students in the elementary and middle school will be required to use smaller backpacks in comparison to the students in high school. The laptops that students will be using in high school are fully-equipped laptops that need more care that the other robust models used in the lower sections of the school.
In addition, staff and administrators will reinforce the rules of laptop carrying around campus. No computers in high school will be moved without the use of a suitable laptop bag that can safely strap the equipment inside the bag.

Staff Development

Teachers and administrators will be the first ones to have a chance to get familiarized with the equipment that will be introduced in their classrooms. It will be necessary to prepare comprehensive tutorials or manuals to allow a quick switch into using the new technology. The professional development group will have finalized their plans for training sessions and will have begun designing the instruction. This instruction will include specific information about the change of school structure as a well as content and grade specific methods for conducting student-centered classes. Teacher responsibilities and technology integration strategies for student-centered project-based units of study will be included.

The administrative team and the professional development team will be carrying out intensive, paid, summer training sessions to prepare teachers for the changes to come in the fall. Teachers will then be given time to restructure their lessons and will have support available when they have problems.
Numerous schools have found ways to adjust schedules and provide one hour of planning and inservice for teachers while maintaining state requirements for students contact time. In some schools teachers have agreed to start earlier and end later each day as well as give up some recess or duty time in order to develop a one-hour block of time per week for inservice and planning. A key is to make sure that at least one early-out per month is devoted to a technology inservice activity.

It is crucial that consideration be given to teacher learning well in advance of the arrival of computers in the classroom. The list that follows is a brief synopsis of beneficial staff development suggestions:
• Formulate detailed plans for staff development and implementation.
• Decide who will lead staff development programs and evaluate each stage of implementation.
• Develop a working schedule for the staff development program.
• Determine appropriate staff development activities for special services and support staff.
• Identify who will lead and evaluate staff development for auxiliary staff members.
• Identify in-house technical consultants who will help teachers deal quickly with problems that might arise.

Technical Support

Maintaining and servicing networked equipment continues to be a challenge for schools' effective use of technology. More states are now requiring that districts and schools have a technology specialist or coordinator who supports teachers in integrating instruction and technology before that district can receive state funding. Schools could also have in-house technical support to deal with all the technical problems that could arise. You should foresee a great number of incident reports that deal with student damaging display screen or damaging equipment because of negligence in carrying them.
The summer before the implementation, the same groups will be working to get things ready for the students in the fall. The goals are to have the technology in place to facilitate as smooth a transition as possible. The technology team will receive the laptops, inventory them and load them with the chosen operating systems and software. They will also check connectivity at each school and important points around the district to ensure that the laptops can work from the first day of school. Finally, they will create a yearly maintenance plan for cleaning and preventative care.
If staff or students need to use equipment like projectors, digital cameras or even cables, they can request the media center to facilitate the equipment and provide operational guidance.

Flexible Scheduling

They will also conduct public relations meetings for members of the community to inform them about the specifics of the program, including the change from a seven period isolated subject schedule to a more integrated block schedule that includes math-science-art blocks, history-literature-reading-writing-music blocks, world language-history-art music blocks and physical education-art-music-history blocks. They will explain the benefits of changing the school structure to a more constructivist, student- centered one by explaining the theory of how students learn best and demonstrating some proposed class exercises.
Flexible scheduling provides quality time either in the lounge or in the classroom for specific staff members to get together and share ideas about technology. A bonding often occurs between the mentor-teacher and the staff member needing encouragement. This new-found relationship helps solve technical problems and misunderstandings and opens the way for future inservice opportunities.
Local Intranet
Data intranets are becoming commonplace in schools. Intranets give schools an unprecedented ability to manage their budgets, buy supplies, and analyze student data. For example, districts are using the data intranet to provide information on student records, text scores, attendance, and health information, to create student profiles.
Additional Key Points
The key to success with technology is allowing teachers to develop a sense of ownership of the school's technology. Once teachers develop a sense of ownership, they will be ready to move on to higher levels of technology use. When all is said and done, it will be teachers who determine the success or failure of a technology plan. They are the people who connect technology with curricular practice in a way that will enhance student achievement. In every class, teachers must contend with a variety of learners, such as the fast-paced learner, the less-motivated learner, students with learning difficulties, and the list could go on. With computers in the classroom, teachers have access to tools that have potential for providing learning experiences relevant to each of these unique learners.

Infrastructure

When speaking of infrastructure, one is generally referring to the basic facilities and mechanical and electrical installations found in a school. These facilities and installations form the foundation for proposed technology upgrades.

The following points provide a brief outline of things to consider when reviewing infrastructure:
• Decide how existing equipment and infrastructure can be integrated into the project.
• Visit other schools to evaluate successful programs for structural adaptations that could be copied and, in particular, look for unique ideas to solve local problems.
• Make sure that the network wiring satisfies the needs of the teachers.
• Make sure to count with the necessary expertise to ready the infrastructure for implementation.
• Make sure professionals are brought in order to handle remodeling and other infrastructure needs.
• The technology staff will run diagnostics on the district to check for adequate connectivity and electrical resources and take action to fix any inadequacies or to bolster the already existing systems.

Teaching and Learning

When considering how technology will be brought into the classroom, both teaching and learning should be considered. Several points to remember when considering the effects of technology on teaching and learning are:
• Evaluate hardware purchases and coordinate them to student needs. Consider features like user-friendliness, dependability, and speed.
• Evaluate projected software purchases to determine which programs will best complement, support, and expand classroom teaching and learning.
• Evaluate planned software purchases for comprehensiveness and user-friendliness. Comprehensiveness is important because ease of use flattens the learning curve and helps ensure that the programs will be used. When checking the software programs, all updates to versions and site licenses will also be completed.
• Determine the simplest approach that will effectively bring computers into the teaching and learning environment. Simplicity aids understanding and allows stakeholders to support the process more readily.
• Establish dialogues with teachers to evaluate classroom space and decide on computer locations withing each classroom.
• Determine the amount of use teachers will make of the new technology.
• Regardless of the size of the technology project, standardizing hardware and software are essential to maintaining control of the technology. Having a single configuration for all computers helps simplify maintenance. More time can be spent using the technology.


Developing Your Basic Strategic Plan

1. Write Your Mission Statement
In the section labeled "Mission Statement" in the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write a concise description of the purpose of your organization. Answer the question: "Why does our organization exist?" When answering this question, include the nature of your products and the groups of customer who buy your products. The mission statement should provide continued direction and focus to your plans and operation in your organization.

Write Your Vision Statement

In the section labeled "Vision Statement" in the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write your vision statement. Answer the question "What do you hope for your organization and customers?" Ideally, it should be written in a compelling, inspirational fashion. Write Your Values Statement
In the section labeled "Values Statement" in the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down the important values from which you want your organization to operate. The values statement depicts the priorities in how the organization carries out activities with stakeholders. Conduct an External Analysis
In Appendix C of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down your thoughts from an external analysis. An external analysis looks at societal, technological, political, and economic trends effecting the organization, e.g., trends in the economy, recent or pending legislation, demographic trends, rate of access to trained labor, and competition. In your external analysis, don't forget to look at stakeholders’ impressions of the organization, including bankers', customers’, community leaders’, etc. Conduct an Internal Analysis (SWOT)
In Appendix C of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down your thoughts from your internal analysis. Write down the major strengths and weaknesses of your organization. Write down the major threats and opportunities regarding your organization. Consider trends effecting the organization, e.g., strength of sales, reputation of the organization, expertise of employees, facilities, strength of finances, strength of administrative offices and operations, etc. Identify Strategic Issues
In Appendix C of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down the major immediate and near-term issues that your organization must address. New organizations, in particular, are often better off to first look at the major obstacles or issues that if faces, and next identify the more forward-looking, developmental goals to accomplish over the next few years. For example, current issues might be that sales are dropping, there is no research and development to generate new products, employee turnover rate is too high, etc. Developmental goals for a new organization might be, for example, build a board, do a strategic plan, do a market analysis to build a new product, hire employees, etc.
To identify the key issues identified from your strategic analyses, consider the following guidelines:
a) From considering the effects of weaknesses and threats that you identified, what are the major issues that you see? List as many as you can. Consider issues over the term of your strategic plan, but look very closely at the next year especially. Many organizations have stumbled badly because they ended up "falling over their feet" while being focused much too far down the road.
b) Consider each of issues. Ask whether it’s “important” or “urgent.” Often, issues seem very important when they're only urgent, for example, changing a flat tire is an urgent issue -- but you'd never put "changing a tire" in your strategic plan. Attend only to the important issues and not the urgent issues.
c) Deal with issues that you can do something about. Issues that are too narrow do not warrant planning and issues that are too broad will bog you down.
d) Issues should be clearly articulated so that someone from outside of the organization can read the description and understand the nature of the issue.


2. Establish Strategic Goals

In the section labeled "Goals and Strategies" in the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down the strategic goals to address the above-identified issues and the more forward-looking, developmental goals. Consider goals over the term of your strategic plan, but look very closely at the next year especially. Design and word your goals to be "SMARTER", that is, specific, measurable, acceptable to the people working to achieve the goals, realistic, timely, extending the capabilities of those working to achieve the goals and rewarding to them. Don't worry so much about having to specify goals to be exactly "correct". Carefully consider whether the goals and strategies are closely aligned with your mission, vision and values.
As noted above, if you are developing a new organization, then you'll probably have goals to build a board, do a strategic plan, do a market analysis to build a product, hire employees, etc. You'll probably have organization-wide goals (for example, goals in regard to building and running your organization, for example, board development, staffing, getting a new building, etc) and product-specific goals (goals that are directly in regard to providing products or services to your customers.Establish Strategies to Reach Goals
In the section labeled "Goals and Strategies" in the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down the general approaches needed to reach the goals -- over the next year especially. Consider strategies over the term of the strategic plan, but especially over the next year. Carefully consider whether the goals and strategies are closely aligned with your mission, vision and values. Note that these strategies may become overall action plans for developing programs. Develop Staffing Plan
In Appendix E of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write a rough draft of a staffing plan. To do this, reference each of the strategies to reach the goals and consider what kind of capabilities are needed to implement the strategies. This might seem like a lot of guesswork, particularly if you don't have experience in supervision. However, don't worry so much about being exactly correct -- you will likely refine your staffing plan later on as you design and plan your products. If you are developing a new organization, you might think about including the following typical roles in your initial staffing plan (but again, consider these roles in terms of implementing the strategies in your plan): chief executive, administrative assistant and product managers for each of your major product goals. Conduct Action Planning (objectives, responsibilities and timelines)
In Appendix A of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, for each strategy, write down the objectives that must be achieved while implementing the strategy, when the objective should be completed and by whom -- especially over the next year. As you identify who will accomplish each of the objectives, you might end up refining your staffing planDevelop an Operating Budget for Each Year in the Plan
In the table labeled "Your Budget Planning" in Appendix F of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, list the resources you will need to achieve the goals in the strategic plan and what it will cost to obtain and use the resources. You don't have to be exactly accurate -- besides, you may end up changing your budget as you give more attention to product design and planning in the next learning module. You should do a budget for each of the years included in the span of time covered by your strategic plan -- but give particular attention to the first year of the time span.
Look at each of your product-related goals. Think about how much revenue the product might generate. Next, think about the expenses to produce, sell and support the product, such as human resources, facilities, equipment, special materials, marketing and promotions, etc. (Note that this budget planning often provides strong input to the overall budget. We'll likely convert your operating budget to a set of program budgets. Associate Strategic Goals to Performance Goals for Board and Chief Executive
In Appendix D of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down which board committees (in the case of corporations) will be addressing which strategic goals. The chief executive should be attending to responsibilities and goals that are directly aligned with the strategic goals of the organization (as should the responsibilities and goals of everyone else in the organization). Therefore, after strategic goals have been identified, it's timely for the board to update the performance goals of the chief executive (who, in turn, updates the performance goals of everyone else in the management and staff of the organization). Specify How Implementation of Plan Will Be Monitored and Evaluated
In Appendix H of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down how the status of implementation will be monitored and evaluated. Consider, for example, weekly written status reports to the chief executive from employees, and monthly written reports to board members. Status will address whether goals and objectives are being met or not, current issues and any resource needed to implement the plan.Specify How Plan Will Be Communicated
In Appendix I of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down how the plan will be communicated. Consider distributing all (or highlights from) the plan to everyone in the organization. Post your mission on the walls of your main offices. Consider giving each employee a card with the mission statement on it. Publish portions of your plan in your regular newsletter. Complete Rest of Strategic Plan Document
To complete your strategic plan document, update the following sections of the Framework for a Basic Strategic Plan Document:
a) Complete the section labeled "Executive Summary" (guidelines are provided in the framework)
b) Gain authorization from your board (in the case of corporations) (they should sign in the section labeled "Board Authorization of Strategic Plan")
c) In the body of the plan in the section titled "Organizational Information", include descriptions, for example, of the history of the organization, its major products and services, highlights and accomplishments during the history of the organization, etc.
d) In Appendix B, provide description of the process you used to develop the strategic plan, including what worked and what didn't. This information will be useful to planners when they next do strategic planning.


3. Acknowledge What You've Done -- Congratulations!


These are some factors that could help expedite the implementation of the IS plan.

References:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Technology_Planning/Implementation_Plan
http://www.ncrtec.org/capacity/guidewww/eval.htm
http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262